- Type
- Feature Film
- Location
- Harris, TX
- Genre
- Comedy
Just One Step
A snobby Americanized immigrant sees her prim lifestyle fall apart when her in-laws and mom visit, chaotically forcing her confront the question of who she is.
Sara, a snobby Americanized accountant in her thirties, lives with her husband, Greg, and her five year old daughter, Sofia, in an apartment complex.
Surrounded at the complex by a wannabe guitar player, tattooed sassy hairdresser who lives with a hippy boyfriend, and "the likes", Sarah is suffocating. All Sara wants is a house in a quiet upscale area and quiet rich friends, all Americans, in snappy suits and lengthy dresses and who, most importantly, are not immigrants.
A successful finance manager, she feels that her job is overly demanding. Her husband is not as determined as she is to achieve her “American dream” and her five year old daughter is getting harder and harder to manage. Her only escape is a dance studio where she practices her ballet moves - she is indeed very good at dancing.
The real problems arise when her mother, Eleanor, and Greg’s parents, Dada and Miriam, decide to visit. They come to stay with Sara and Greg in their small three bedroom apartment. They are an embarrassment enough for Sara as they speak with unbearable accent and more often than not have a hard time understanding the culture and articulating their thoughts. To make the matters worse, the parents become friends with all the neighbors, organize neighborhood parties, having everyone over for dinner and teas.
Thus, Sara’s dream of a fine house is out of reach as she realizes that the parents will readily invite themselves to live with her and Greg.
Sara decides to fight back. Knowing that the softest spot of both her mother and the in-laws is “what people at home say if...”, she decides to take part in a TV dancing and singing competition. Enrolled in a competition together with 16 to 20-year-olds, a thirty year old Sara leaves for California and makes a fool of herself on national television - she dances and sings well but performing with “youngsters” is an embarrassment. She plans to blackmail the parents by warning them to send the taped performances to all the friends in their home country.
She is voted off, but when she’s back home she sees the changes. Her in-laws moved out and her mother is much more reserved than she was. But Sara changed as well. She realizes that she took her lively mother and willing-to-help in-laws for granted and that her job is a blessing and that there’s no place better than home.
Surrounded at the complex by a wannabe guitar player, tattooed sassy hairdresser who lives with a hippy boyfriend, and "the likes", Sarah is suffocating. All Sara wants is a house in a quiet upscale area and quiet rich friends, all Americans, in snappy suits and lengthy dresses and who, most importantly, are not immigrants.
A successful finance manager, she feels that her job is overly demanding. Her husband is not as determined as she is to achieve her “American dream” and her five year old daughter is getting harder and harder to manage. Her only escape is a dance studio where she practices her ballet moves - she is indeed very good at dancing.
The real problems arise when her mother, Eleanor, and Greg’s parents, Dada and Miriam, decide to visit. They come to stay with Sara and Greg in their small three bedroom apartment. They are an embarrassment enough for Sara as they speak with unbearable accent and more often than not have a hard time understanding the culture and articulating their thoughts. To make the matters worse, the parents become friends with all the neighbors, organize neighborhood parties, having everyone over for dinner and teas.
Thus, Sara’s dream of a fine house is out of reach as she realizes that the parents will readily invite themselves to live with her and Greg.
Sara decides to fight back. Knowing that the softest spot of both her mother and the in-laws is “what people at home say if...”, she decides to take part in a TV dancing and singing competition. Enrolled in a competition together with 16 to 20-year-olds, a thirty year old Sara leaves for California and makes a fool of herself on national television - she dances and sings well but performing with “youngsters” is an embarrassment. She plans to blackmail the parents by warning them to send the taped performances to all the friends in their home country.
She is voted off, but when she’s back home she sees the changes. Her in-laws moved out and her mother is much more reserved than she was. But Sara changed as well. She realizes that she took her lively mother and willing-to-help in-laws for granted and that her job is a blessing and that there’s no place better than home.
Comments (2)
Brian Howell In your sample pages there is definately some comedy. It reminds me of "My Big Fat Greek Wedding". It's easy to get lost when you give me a list of people in your action lines. I recommend trying to break the list of people up somewhat, or refer to them as a group, then later (in the same scene) distinguish the different individuals.
March 17, 2010Your synopsis is a bit jumbled and overly descriptive. You also change the spelling of Sara to Sarah a few times.
Your logline gives no indication of some of your greatest elements of comedy - her parents coming from another country. It sounds like it's a big part of your story, I think it deserves at least a mention in your logline. The logline is also cut-off, almost like you had written one that was longer than the required character limit, but you didn't rewrite it to fit.
Overall the concept is good. Your pitch just came off a little rough and unpolished.
Khamanna Iskandarova Thanks Brian. You're right, I rushed with both the logline and the synopsis. I have the updates on file.
March 18, 2010William Coleman There is a sense of authenticity in the synopsis and the sample. We all become embarrassed by less socially adroit family members and not just immigrants. However, the the dialog I wish you'd done a little more to show the cultural division, perhaps by dialect. There's a film here that could go beyond "The Visitor."
March 9, 2010Khamanna Iskandarova Thank you so much for reading and commenting, Bill.
March 9, 2010It was the very first thing I've ever written. Upon finishing, I gave it another round and americanized the dialog throughout, leaving some accent but not too much. I think I'll go through again and redo what I did:)) - or maybe I have a little in common with my main character, just like all of us who get embarrassed by family. This is so true - yeah we do get embarrassed and surprisingly so often.